TORONTO – A report from BloombergNEF finds that while Canada's five largest banks are among the largest financiers of the energy sector in the world, they are among the worst of the top 100 when it comes to the share of that financing devoted to low-carbon energy sources becomes.

According to the report, banks around the world spent about 73 cents on low-carbon energy for every dollar spent on fossil fuel supplies in 2022, a ratio of 0.73 to one. That's a far cry from the four-to-one ratio the report says needs to be achieved this decade to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Canada's largest banks have odds ranging from 0.45:1 on BMO's $18.9 billion energy financing, ranking 88th to 0.32:1 on Scotiabank's $35.9 billion financing US dollars, which puts it outside the top 100.

Between the two, CIBC had a 0.41:1 ratio for its $17.9 billion financing, RBC had a 0.37:1 ratio for its $42.7 billion financing and TD Bank's ratio of 0.35:1 for its $30.2 billion in financing placed it at the bottom of the list of 100 banks.

The National Bank is a special case: with $1.10 in low-carbon financing for every dollar invested in fossil fuels and $14.9 billion in financing, it ranks 52nd in the world.

The report shows that BMO, TD and Scotiabank's ratios worsened compared to 2021, those of RBC remained unchanged, while those of CIBC and National Bank improved.

Richard Brooks, director of climate finance at environmental group Stand.earth, said in a statement he was disappointed that banks were not making progress on climate solutions while the world was already feeling the effects of climate change. extreme weather conditions.

“No bank is doing its fair share of the work needed to transform our global energy systems. In fact, they are making the problem worse,” he lamented.

The banks initially did not comment on this.